Medicaid recipients could face new work requirement

The Trump administration has given its blessing for Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin to implement work requirements for some Medicaid recipients, and while his critics are predicting this move will result in people needlessly dying, Bevin argues it will lead to better health outcomes because more people have a stake in the system.

Bevin’s predecessor, Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear, embraced Medicaid expansion as President Obama’s health law took effect. However, Bevin told WND and Radio America that decision did not result in better health care for the people in Kentucky.

“The whole purpose of having health coverage is to, ultimately, allow people to have better health outcomes,” he explained. “What we have seen is through the expansion of Medicaid, we actually have fewer doctors, not more, that will even see Medicaid patients, which means that we’ve made access to health care less possible, even though more people are covered.”

Bevin said just adding people to Medicaid isn’t even an upgrade for those who had no coverage prior to Obamacare taking effect and Kentucky agreeing to expand Medicaid.

“Studies that have been done have shown that people with Medicaid access in some instances have lesser health outcomes, at best equivalent health outcomes to people with no coverage at all,” Bevin said. “That’s a pretty sobering fact.”

And he said the short-term evaluation of health in Kentucky is seeing no improvement.

“Kentucky leads the nation in many health categories that we would not want to: diabetes, lung cancer, premature death, hypertension, cardiac arres, and cardiovascular disease,” Bevin said. “These are things we don’t want to lead the nation on, and these numbers have only gone up since we’ve expanded Medicaid. This tells us something isn’t working.”

As governor, Bevin said it is his job to make sure taxpayer dollars are providing some value for the people in the commonwealth.